A British tragedy...

The news play a vital function in today's world. Through news outlets on websites, their pages on social network sites, and physical print papers if that's still your thing, people from around the globe are able to learn about events happening on the other side of the world as they unfold. The manner in which these stories are reported influences the way in which they're interpreted, and it is the role of reporters to present the facts so that people may be reliably informed about what is going on around the world. Which brings me to a real tragedy that happened today, and the audacious way it has been reported by certain news outlets.

When I woke up today, i checked my computer and learnt there had been an Earthquake in Nepal. An absolute tragedy in which thousands have perished. However, certain headlines about this infuriated me. For example, here is a headline (in fact the first headline) that I saw, from the Daily Telegraph:

"Dozens of Britons missing after Nepal earthquake and avalanche"
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/nepal/11563414/Dozens-of-Britons-missing-after-Nepal-earthquake-and-avalanche.html

What an utter fucking disgrace. A human tragedy being manipulated into a British tragedy. THOUSANDS of people lose their lives, and instead of focusing on that, one of the most insignificant details of the story is blown up to inconceivable proportions, such that any meaningful information is hidden away, barely noticeable. It does briefly mention that a few hundred people are feared dead or missing, but that is the only mention of the non-Brits in the article, which then goes on talking about a Suffolk woman (mentioned by name) for 13 lines, including inexplicably the fact that she graduated in law last summer. What value does this add?

Is it impossible to feel sympathy or compassion about a story of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster unless there's a chance you may personally know some of them? I was plenty upset at the news without considering some of them may have been British. Are British so self involved as to show no interest whatsoever in any event unless given a case study of another Brit involved, so much so that we need to know her education history, birthday, how long she'd been on holiday and what she'd been planning to do? What it be far too frivolous had such details not been known? Obviously, the family of Britons who are on holiday over there are going to be worried. But I was under the impression that that fact was so obvious, it didn't even need mentioning. I wonder who else is worried besides the families of the "dozens" of Brits who were over there. Oh, hmm, perhaps the families of the HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE IN NEPAL AT THE TIME.

Putting the dozens of Britons ahead of the thousands of others belittles the situation immeasurably, and the manner in which it was done in this particular instance is an abomination and an affront; and affront to basic compassion for our fellow man (everyman, not just countryman) that is instilled within human nature, instead favouring some absurd sense of nationalism, because the headline "Dozens of Britons missing after Nepal earthquake and avalanche" really reads "Tragedy for dozens of our poor, unfortunate (which they are), fellow Brits and then some insignificant foreigners".